1993

Highlights of 1993:

June 08: Pisco, Peru – Shortly before midnight over a thousand people turn up at a cemetery in Pisco, Peru, in the hope of witnessing the resurrection of an alleged vampire named Sarah Ellen Roberts. Local historians and officials from the British Embassy are shocked to learn that the corpse of Mrs Roberts had been brought to Pisco from Blackburn, England, by her husband John Roberts in 1913, because British authorities refused to let him bury his wife in England, as they believed her to be a vampire. Mr Roberts had dismissed the refusal as an absurdity, but subsequently bought a lead-lined coffin for his deceased wife, and allegedly roamed the world on a ship for four years, seeking out a country that would allow him to bury her. Finally, he was allowed to inter his wife at Pisco for the sum of five pounds. Shortly after the ad hoc burial service, Mr Roberts boarded a ship for England and was never heard of again. After this, the news from England reached Pisco with considerable embellishments; Sarah Ellen Roberts had been bound in chains and shut up in the lead-lined coffin after being found guilty of witchcraft, murder and vampirism. Just before the lid of the coffin was screwed down, the Lancashire witch had screamed she would return from the grave to seek vengeance. Naturally, the Peruvian peasants in the town trembled at the news. Over the years, the legend had risen to something approaching cult status in Pisco. In June 1993, people visiting a grave in the same cemetery are terrified when they allegedly witness a large crack appearing in the headstone of the Blackburn woman’s grave. That night, over a thousand thrill seekers and occultists descend on the graveyard after the word is spread that the vampire would rise from her grave at midnight. Hundreds of local women leave the town ‘to prevent the vampire being reincarnated in their new-born children’, and cloves of garlic and crucifixes festooned the front doors of almost every house in the region. The vampire mania reaches its peak at midnight, and police are called in to control the hysterical crowds. Shots are fired in the air, and slowly the crowds disperse. A small group of local witch doctors are allowed to stay at the grave, where they splash the cracked headstone with holy water and sprinkle white rose petals around. The English vampire does not rise, and the witch doctors later celebrate their ‘success’ at laying the undead woman to rest. (Article)

September 3: Toronto, Canada – a bar named “Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar” opens on Queen Street West, in step with the increasing popularity of vampiric-goth archetypes. Sanctuary originally imposes a gothic dress code to strictly adhere to the gothic fashion aspect of the scene. (Article)